Chapter D: Appleton and Company (8)

"What I want to know is, how much the Evergreen is responsible for this kidnaping?" went on Joe, as cold as Mr. Kingley was hot. They might have been the two extremities of a dinner--hot soup and frozen pudding. Joe did not seem to care a pin if Mr. Kingley did sputter and glare at him.

"Joe!" Both Mr. Kingley and Mr. Bill were on their feet and their exclamations were full of genuine and righteous indignation.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Bill found his tongue first. "What do you mean, Cary? What has father to do with the Sons of Sunshine?"

"That's what I want him to tell us," Joe said, while Mr. Kingley continued to imitate a soda-water bottle. "There are things which must be cleared up. I don't know much, but I suspect a lot." He turned his back on the soda-water bottle and spoke directly to Mr. Bill. "You remember the way your father acted when this darned news came to Tessie, how he framed a big publicity campaign for the Evergreen, the exhibition of the clothes he sold Tessie, the aluminum sale for the poor children of the Sunshine Islands, the moving picture he had made of her, oh, the whole business? It was all over the front page of the newspapers every day. And it made the Evergreen famous from New York to San Francisco. People who came to town asked the way to the Evergreen instead of to the Art Museum or the new post office. It put the Evergreen on the world map, and made it the most-talked-of store in the country. No matter what came up, Mr. Kingley considered the Evergreen before he did Tessie. And what I want to know now is how much of the thing is fake and how much is true?"

"And what I want to know now," declared Mr. Bill standing shoulder to shoulder with Joe and facing this choking parent, "is where Tessie Gilfooly is. If half what Joe says is true, then you know where she is, and you've got to tell me!"

Mr. Kingley turned his bulging eyes from one determined young face only to see another determined young face. He could not entrench himself behind glittering generalities another minute. They would know what he knew, and he might as well tell them at once.

"Boys," he began slowly, "sit down and I'll tell you what I know. Sit down!" he roared, as they failed to obey his first order but stood facing him with a watchfulness which was very annoying. "You make me nervous standing there, and looking at me as if I were a criminal. No, Bill," as Mr. Bill impatiently shifted his weight from one brown shoe to the other, "I don't know anything about the kidnaping of Miss Gilfooly! But Joe is right in his statement that I made use of the strange things that have happened here to advertise the Evergreen. I only did what any red-blooded man would have done. It would have been blind stupid folly to have refused to use such material. And a store never had such publicity. Joe is right when he says the Evergreen is the most famous store in the world. People do come from all over the country, and our mail-order business is doubled, trebled, because of the romance we found in our basement."

"Get down to brass tacks, Dad," rudely interrupted Mr. Bill. "Never mind a speech. Just tell us in a few simple words whether you originated the whole stunt? Are there any Sunshine Islands? Did Tessie Gilfooly ever have an Uncle Pete? Did----"

"Bill!" exclaimed Mr. Kingley, looking incurably injured. "How can you think that I would stoop to such unscrupulous methods!"

"But did you?" insisted Mr. Bill. He walked over to stand beside his father as if to remind him that there might be more than one way to obtain a direct answer to a simple question.

Before Mr. Kingley could say whether he did or didn't, Norah Lee burst unceremoniously into the room.

"Oh, Mr. Kingley!" she exclaimed quickly. "Ka-kee-ta has come back! He came half an hour ago, and he is perfectly furious because the queen and the Tear of God have disappeared!"

"Ka-kee-ta!" The exclamation was an incredulous trio. The motif was full of unbelief.

"Where has he been?" demanded Joe, one eye on Mr. Kingley and the other on pink-cheeked, breathless Norah. "Where was he?"

"He doesn't seem to know," Norah said. She was eager to tell her story. "He actually says he doesn't know. He went to get the chocolates for Tessie, and when he came back, he had a five-pound box under his arm. But where he was and what he was doing he can't, or won't say! He mumbles a lot of native gibberish, but of course I can't understand that. It's maddening! He declares he will find Tessie before night. And Pracht, too. And he mumbles a lot about sharks!"

"He would!" muttered Joe, a puzzled frown cutting his forehead from his face.

"I hope he does find her!" exclaimed Mr. Bill, staring at his father, who seemed pleased that Ka-kee-ta had returned.

"Of course I'm not worried about Tessie since she telephoned that she was all right," went on Norah. She could feel that there was a tension in the office atmosphere, and as she did not understand it she talked nervously. "I know she is all right, but----"

"How do you know she is all right?" burst forth Mr. Bill. "She may have been forced to send that message. You don't know that she is all right at all!" He contradicted Norah flatly and rudely.

Joe looked at him in surprise. "She was all right when she left the cottage," he impatiently reminded Mr. Bill. "She was right enough to eat some breakfast and change her clothes. Of course she is all right, and," he turned his eyes on Mr. Kingley, who squirmed uneasily. "I'm inclined to think that Ka-kee-ta is right, that Tessie will be found before the morning edition of the _Gazette_ goes to press. How about it, Mr. Kingley? Do you agree with me?"

"I hope so. I sincerely hope so," stuttered Mr. Kingley, who found it very disagreeable to be singled out as Joe had singled him. "I do hope she will be found long before then."

"Ka-kee-ta's looking for her now," Norah went on. "He didn't wait a second, but went off with the candy under one arm and his ax under the other."

"Mr. Douglas wants to see Mr. Kingley," broke in the office boy from the doorway.

"Douglas?" Mr. Kingley looked as if he had never heard of any Mr. Douglas.

"Bert Douglas from Marvin, Phelps & Stokes," Mr. Bill told him. "Send him in," he said to the boy. "Perhaps he can tell us something."

Bert came in with much dignity and importance. He glanced at the little group--Norah and Mr. Bill and Joe--which had formed in front of Mr. Kingley, and he explained at once why he was there.

"Mr. Marvin sent me over to tell you, Mr. Kingley, that the special representative from the Sunshine Islands, Mr. Pitts, has arrived to confer with Queen Teresa. As you have taken the queen under your protection, he thought you should know at once."

There was not a sound, but the air was heavy with significance. They all felt it. Joe Cary stepped forward.

"Then there really are Sunshine Islands?" He sounded as if he had never really believed that there were any Sunshine Islands.

Bert looked at him in surprise. "Of course!" he said. "The special representative is a white man--James Pitts. He has had charge of King Pete's business affairs. He was on the islands when King Pete died, and then, just as he was ready to leave, the radicals, Sons of Sunshine, they call themselves, you know, locked him up. But he had sent Ka-kee-ta with a lot of important papers to a lawyer in Honolulu, and the lawyer brought him here. Pitts managed to escape and has just arrived. We were glad to see him, for we had so many contradictory messages from him and about him, that we scarcely knew what to think. I suppose they were sent by the radicals."

Joe stared at him before he drew a long breath, and turned away. "Mr. Kingley," he said impulsively, "I beg your pardon!"

"I should think you would," Mr. Kingley told him gruffly.

"All we have to do now," went on Bert, still rather overfull of importance, "is to find Queen Teresa, and then we can settle everything up. Mr. Marvin thought perhaps--" He looked suggestively at Mr. Kingley, who hurriedly shook his head and fairly bellowed his reply.

"No, I don't! I don't know where she is! You go right back and tell Mr. Marvin I don't know! This is all very interesting and very romantic, but it doesn't do my work. If there is nothing I can do for you, I would suggest that I have the morning mail to look over. Send in Miss Jenson," he curtly told the boy who ran in to answer his buzzer.

Joe, stalking out behind the others, could not refrain from a last word. He would have choked if he had not spoken. "You mean Mr. Gray, don't you?" He grinned sarcastically. "The _Gazette_ should be told of the arrival of James Pitts, special representative of the Sunshine Islands, whose queen was found in the basement of the Evergreen."

Mr. Kingley regarded him with cold eyes. "Will you kindly shut the door behind you?" he said so frostily that any thermometer would have registered his temperature as far, far below zero.

XXIV

They held a conference in the ante-room, Joe, Mr. Bill, Bert and Norah.

"This Pitts is a real man, is he, Bert?" asked Joe.

"I should say he was! Big as the side of a house and quicker than chain lightning. He knew all about this Pracht brute and understood at once why he stole the Gilfooly marriage record. He says the Sons of Sunshine are only the tools of a syndicate that is trying to get possession of the islands to sell them to Japan, so that Japan can have an aeroplane base near the United States. Sounds like an old-fashioned melodrama, doesn't it? The beautiful heroine and the wicked villain and everything!"

"Everything but the noble hero," sighed Norah. "He should find the queen. Poor little girl! I wonder where she is!"

"Poor Queen Teresa!" They all wondered.

"Say," exclaimed Mr. Bill suddenly. "I'm not satisfied! I'm going back to the aluminum!" And he dashed into a descending elevator.

They were close at his heels, and when they left the cage at the basement, they met Mr. Larsen waiting to go up. He put out his hand and caught Mr. Bill's arm.

"Did you find the girl you were looking for?" he asked quickly. "You were in such a hurry you didn't wait for me to remember that there was another one. I sent her to the crockery!" He nodded toward the crockery which was a neighbor of the hardware. "She was an old girl," he explained, "and that was why----"

But Mr. Bill did not wait to hear "why," he was hurrying to a pile of blue-and-white mixing bowls which half concealed a little clerk in the required black sateen. Her back was toward them, but they could see that her hair was pulled from her forehead into a tight knot at her neck and that she wore big amber goggles. She looked as if she might be a near relative to the Mary Smith they had found in the hardware. Joe Cary shook his head. That girl wasn't Tessie. Here was just another disappointment for Mr. Bill.

"He's only wasting time," Joe grumbled to Norah Lee, for if that girl was Tessie of course Joe would recognize her at once, and Joe could not see that she resembled Tessie in anything but size. Tessie never wore her hair like that. And Tessie did not have amber goggles.

"I beg your pardon," Mr. Bill said breathlessly, when he reached the black sateen back, "but would you be kind enough to remove your glasses?" But before the girl could remove her glasses, before she could do more than swing around and shrink away and blush and stammer, he had her hands in his. "Tessie!" he cried. "Tessie Gilfooly! I knew you were here!" His hands held her fingers tight as he repeated, "I knew you were here!"

"Tessie!" It was plain that Joe had never really thought that she would be there.

"Queen Teresa?" Bert peered over Joe's shoulder and wondered if this odd-looking girl could be pretty Tessie Gilfooly.

"Oh, Tessie Gilfooly!" Norah was as sure as Mr. Bill. "We have been so worried about you!"

"How did you know I was here?" Tessie tore off the disguising glasses and let them see her big blue eyes.

"I knew!" Mr. Bill told her quickly. "I had a hunch you would feel safer in your old job than anywhere else in Waloo. And you disguised yourself as a salesgirl!" He laughed chokingly. "And came back right next to the old job? That's a good one on Walker! He never recognized you?"

"You didn't recognize her at first, either, Mr. Bill," reminded the mortified Mr. Walker, who was hovering near. "And the crockery isn't in my department."

"I knew she was here!" declared Mr. Bill. "But it did take me a minute or two to find her. I never thought she would hide herself behind amber goggles. We hunted for you all night," he told Tessie simply.

Tessie flushed. "I'm sorry," she said just as simply. "I was so scared, and so mad," she explained. And she told them how she had gone to find Ka-kee-ta, and had been locked in an upstairs room in the old brick house. And when she had escaped, owing to Joe's insistence on her regular attendance at the Y. W. C. A. gymnasium classes, she had gone back to the old home and fallen asleep. It was morning when she wakened, and she had changed her clothes, found a nickel in the baking powder can, and telephoned to Granny that she was all right. Then she had gone to the Evergreen. "It was awfully good of Mr. Larsen to take me. I guess he was short-handed. I knew no one would look for me here. And if I pulled my hair back," she put her hand up and pulled her hair looser around her face, "and put on these big amber glasses, I knew no one would recognize me. And no one did!" she finished triumphantly.

"I did!" contradicted Mr. Bill proudly. "I recognized you!"

"I'm glad you did!" Tessie told him softly. "I'm glad you found me!" She felt so safe with Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill would never let any one harm her. She became aware that Mr. Bill was holding tight to her hand, and that the people in the department, customers and clerks were staring at her. She tried to release her fingers, but Mr. Bill would not let them go.

"What's this? What's this?" Mr. Kingley himself was coming toward them. Customers and clerks fell back to make a gangway. "So Queen Teresa has been found in the Evergreen basement a second time!" He smiled until he saw Joe Cary, when he stopped smiling and looked as foolish and as self-conscious as a fat, bald-headed, elderly man could look.

"A strange coincidence," Joe murmured impudently.

"Your special representative is here, Miss Gilfooly," exclaimed Bert, eager for a portion of the Queen's attention. "Mr. Marvin sent me to tell you. You can learn all about your kingdom now."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Tessie. "I've almost decided I don't want a kingdom! I don't know as I even want to be a queen! It's a lot safer to be a salesgirl!" And she drew a long breath.

"That's the stuff, Tess!" indorsed Joe. "There isn't any place in the world to-day for a queen!"

"Miss Gilfooly has no choice," broke in Mr. Kingley, turning his broad back to Joe. "Her good fortune, as such things always are, is just an accident of birth. And one cannot escape the duties to which one is born. That is true of my son and it is true of Miss Gilfooly. Neither of them can shirk the obligations which Providence has given them. I should suggest," he added hastily, as he became aware of an increasing audience, "that Mr. Douglas take Queen Teresa to see Mr. Pitts, so that our business may be resumed. All of these good people," he smiled benevolently on the good people, who were staring at him open-eyed and open-mouthed, "wish to buy something."

"I'll take her!" Mr. Bill exclaimed jealously, and he still clung to Tessie's little hand.

"We'll all go," suggested Joe. "You come too, Mr. Kingley?" he added with unusual courtesy.

"I can't go like this," objected Tessie, looking scornfully at her black frock and touching her hair with her free hand. "I'm a fright!"

"You're an angel!" contradicted Mr. Bill.

Norah slipped behind Tessie, and with magic fingers touched the little knot at the back of Tessie's head. A miracle seemed to be performed before their eyes, for the old Tessie came back to them with the loosening of her yellow hair.

"Bless me!" murmured Mr. Kingley, as interested as he was surprised.

"It's easy for a girl to disguise herself with colored glasses and a new way of doing her hair," laughed Tessie. Her cheeks were as pink as they had been pale. "But shouldn't I go and put on some of my queen clothes?" she asked anxiously. She wished to appear at her best before her special representative.

"You look like an angel as you are!" declared Mr. Bill again, and his voice shook. "Come along!"

A way opened through the crowd, and as Mr. Bill led the Queen away, there was a cheer. Another voice, actually Mr. Walker's voice, took up the shout, until the air was filled with, "Hurrah for Queen Teresa! Hurrah for the Queen!" The sound was music to Mr. Kingley. It was as if the Metropolitan Grand Opera company were there singing in his basement. He turned to Joe. He could afford to be magnanimous.

"Queens may be out of place in the world, Joe," he said complacently, "but the people still seem to like them!"

"Yes," remarked Joe with a grin, "people will always like a show." And he added, as if he were reading Mr. Kingley's inner thoughts, "This is another great day for the Evergreen, isn't it? You're coming with us, Mr. Kingley? Tessie will want everything cleared up now."

"Of course I'm coming!" Mr. Kingley was a bit testy. "I just want to speak to----"

"Mr. Gray?" suggested Joe with another grin.

"To send a message to Miss Gilfooly's grandmother," Mr. Kingley corrected with great dignity. "I think she should know that the queen has been found."

XXV

Mr. Bill hurried Tessie through the crowd and to his car. They both thought of the day, over a month ago, when Tessie had learned that she was a queen, and Mr. Bill had taken her to Marvin, Phelps & Stokes. And now he was taking her to the lawyers' again. They smiled radiantly at each other. How blue the sky was! How bright the sunshine!

"My word!" exclaimed Mr. Bill from the very depths of his honest heart. "I'm glad I found you!"

"I'm glad, too," Tessie murmured shyly. "I made up my mind that I'd stay in the Evergreen basement until the special representative came and made the Sons of Sunshine behave themselves. I'm sorry you were worried," she said apologetically. Indeed she was sorry that Mr. Bill had been worried. The thought that Mr. Bill would worry about her sent a lump, that almost choked her, into her throat.

"Worried!" The word was inadequate to express what Mr. Bill had suffered. "Say," he said quickly, "when I heard you had been carried off I--I--Oh, hang it all!" The eager expression slipped from his face, and he drew back. "I wish you weren't a queen," he muttered discontentedly.

"What were you going to say?" asked Tessie eagerly. "Never mind the queen business. I want to hear what you were going to say."

Mr. Bill looked at her flushed little face and into her starry blue eyes, and he did not care a penny if she were a queen. She was the dearest, the sweetest, the loveliest girl in the world. She was Tessie! Tessie Gilfooly! He did not care a hang if she were also a queen. And he did not care another hang if they were there by the curb with the noon crowd moving up and down the sidewalk. He only remembered that Tessie was there beside him, within reach of his hand, and that all night he had been trying to find her, afraid for her. The words came in a great rush. He could not have kept one of them back to save his life. Tessie did not want him to keep them back--not one of them. Her ears were hungry to hear them all. She colored enchantingly.

"I'm crazy about you!" Mr. Bill said thickly. "And when you were kidnaped yesterday I nearly died! I would have died if you hadn't been found. I know I would! I never felt about a girl as I do about you. I--I don't feel complete unless you are with me. Oh, darn it! I wish you weren't a queen!" He remembered what she was, and looked at her helplessly, almost indignantly.

Tessie laughed softly, and the wild roses deepened in her cheeks. "I don't!" she said firmly. "If I hadn't been a queen, you never, never would have seen me! You never did see me until that day, and all the time I was crazy about you. The first day I went to the Evergreen was the first day you were there, and Mr. Walker took you around and showed you everything. I thought you were the most wonderful man in the world! But you never looked at me! You never saw me until I was a queen! I should say I was glad that Uncle Pete died and sent Ka-kee-ta to find me!" she finished breathlessly.

"You darling! You honey-girl!" Mr. Bill fought valiantly the impulse to take her in his arms and kiss her and kiss her right in the face of the moving noon throng. "And you really do like me?" He wanted to hear her say again that he was the most wonderful man in the world.

"I'm crazy about you!" Tessie repeated happily.

"My word!" He stared at her. "And I'm crazy about you! Can you believe it? I don't know how this is going to end," he said firmly, "but I know this much--I'm not going to give you up to any Sunshine Islands! You belong to me!" He held fast to what belonged to him and grinned.

"That's the wonderful part!" Tessie sighed with ecstasy, her heart beating so fast that she could scarcely find breath to go on. "That I belong to you, and you belong to me! I--I can't make it seem true! It's far more amazing than that I'm a queen!"

The word reminded them that they were on the way to meet the queen's special representative. They never would meet him if they remained in front of the Evergreen. Mr. Bill reluctantly touched a button, and they shot forward just as a man, a _Gazette_ reporter, recognized Tessie. He raised a cheer.

"Oh!" Tessie looked back and waved her hand before she turned her glowing face to Mr. Bill. "Can you believe it? Isn't this the most wonderful world?"

Eventually they joined the others in Mr. Marvin's office. Not only were Joe, Norah, Bert and Mr. Kingley seated around Mr. Marvin's desk, but there was another man there, a big broad-shouldered man with a sunburned face, and beside him stood Ka-kee-ta, and clutched tight in Ka-kee-ta's right hand was the sleeve of Frederic Pracht. Mr. Pracht stood leaning against the wall, a cynical smile on his face.

As Tessie came in, all rosy apology, Ka-kee-ta gave a roar and rushed forward dragging Mr. Pracht with him, and whether he wanted to or not, Mr. Pracht had to make obeisance to the queen.

"Hang it all!" he muttered angrily. "Let me go!"

"Yes, Ka-kee-ta, let him go," ordered Mr. Marvin, as Tessie gave a little shriek when she saw who had been forced to bend before her.

But it was not until James Pitts uttered a few curt words in an unknown tongue that Ka-kee-ta released his prisoner. Mr. Pracht stumbled to his feet and withdrew to a corner, where he stood brushing his clothes with a hand that would shake. He knew very well that it would not be wise for him to take another step. He had gone as far as he could.

"Why, Ka-kee-ta!" Tessie patted her bodyguard on the shoulder. "Where were you? I was so worried about you? And how did you find Mr. Pracht?"

"I think I can tell you that better than Ka-kee-ta," said Mr. Pitts, and he came forward to shake Tessie's little hand. "Glad to meet you," he said formally before he began his story. "I was on my way to Mr. Marvin's office yesterday when I met Ka-kee-ta in front of a candy store. I took him back to the Pioneer to ask him about things and detained him so late that I persuaded him to sleep on the floor of my room instead of returning to disturb you. He never would have left you for a moment if he had known that the Sons of Sunshine had threatened you. As for Pracht, he came to see me this morning to try and make a deal for the islands. He was there when Ka-kee-ta came back to tell me that Miss Gilfooly had disappeared. We suspected that Pracht knew something about the kidnaping, and Ka-kee-ta grabbed him. As long as no harm has been done and you are safe, I would suggest that Pracht be released. He is only the tool of a man who is known in the islands as the Shark. The Shark planned to make a fortune by selling the islands to Japan, and he organized the Sons of Sunshine to cause dissension among the people, and influence them to refuse to accept a white queen. He sent Pracht here to oppose you, and to get the Tear of God, which means everything to the islanders. No one could expect to influence them unless he had the Tear of God. But the Sons of Sunshine turned against the Shark. He was killed in the fight which liberated me, and without him, Pracht is harmless. He did not know of the Shark's death until I told him. Let him go," he advised curtly.

"Wait a minute," exclaimed Mr. Kingley. "Before he goes, I want to know why he used my car to kidnap the queen?" And he glared at Mr. Pracht.

"Because Miss Gilfooly knew your car and would get into it when she was told," Mr. Pracht explained in a voice which was very different from the domineering tones he had used to Tessie. "We had expected to go to the hotel and ask her to come to Mrs. Kingley, but when we picked her up in the street, it was easy. We didn't hurt her!" he added hurriedly.

"No, you didn't hurt her. You didn't dare!" Mr. Pitts told him coldly. "You can go!"

Mr. Pracht did not wait to hear another word. He was glad to go, and he slid out of the door like a brown-and-green snake.

"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Tessie, who was not at all sure that she liked to have Mr. Pitts issue orders and let a brown-and-green snake loose.

"His methods were clumsy," Mr. Pitts said flatly, "from the beginning when he stole the records from the Mifflin court house. And they were clumsy when he had his native servant ransack your house for the Tear of God. The fellow was knocked on the head by Ka-kee-ta who was prowling around to see you, Miss Gilfooly, and who was frightened at what he had done and ran away. It was clumsy of Pracht to think that he could steal the jewel from you at the Evergreen banquet, where he acted as a waiter. And clumsier still to threaten you as he did and to kidnap you. That must have been his servant at the window when you thought you saw Ka-kee-ta. Pracht should have used a little tact. Tact is far more necessary than force in negotiations of this sort." He looked at Tessie and nodded his head to assure her that he had no intention of using force. Tact was the weapon that he would always use.

There was a slight pause which Mr. Kingley broke with a cough. The cough might have been a signal for, as soon as he heard it, Mr. Marvin looked at Mr. Pitts.

"If you have brought information from the Sunshine Islands for Queen Teresa, you might give it to her now," he said. "We are all her friends." And he smiled at Her Majesty.

"Oh, yes!" breathed Queen Teresa on pins and needles to hear about the Sunshine Islands. She regarded her friends with shining eyes. They were friends to be very proud of, every one of them.

Mr. Pitts let his glance roam from one to another also, and his shaggy brows drew together until they made a black line above his keen penetrating eyes.

"I find," he began slowly, carefully weighing each word before he offered it to Tessie and her friends, "that you have no idea of what the Sunshine Islands actually are. You seem to regard them as you would England or any other European kingdom. Of course a king is a king, or in this case, I should say a queen is a queen, but there is a difference between a first-rate power and a group of Pacific islands. I understand from Ka-kee-ta that you have looked upon Miss Gilfooly as you would upon Queen Mary, for instance, and I am afraid that you have prepared her for nothing but disappointment."

Tessie's heart jumped into her mouth. Wasn't she a queen then, after all? Her face, which had been as pink as a rose, turned as white as the flower on Mr. Marvin's desk.

Joe Cary gave a low whistle. "I thought so!" he exclaimed, and he glared at Mr. Kingley.

No one paid any attention to him. Every one was too interested in Mr. Pitts and his words to have even a small portion of interest for whistling Joe Cary.

"I don't understand," went on Mr. Pitts even more carefully, "why you thought best to shower Miss Gilfooly with such royal honors and homage--just why you took that point of view--" he hesitated again.

"You tell us, Mr. Kingley," begged Joe. "You tell us how that mistake was made."

Mr. Kingley flushed and eyed Joe as if he wished that Joe were where he belonged--behind a drawing-board in the advertising department of the Evergreen--instead of in the office of Marvin, Phelps & Stokes, heckling the owner of the Evergreen.

"I happened to be with Mr. Marvin, when he received the papers from the Honolulu lawyer who brought Ka-kee-ta here," he said a little reluctantly, although the reluctance disappeared as he told his story. "They said that the King of the Sunshine Islands--I remember that the word king was distinctly used--had died and made the eldest child of his brother, John Gilfooly of Waloo, his heir. I knew that there was a Miss Gilfooly on the Evergreen pay roll. The name had been unusual enough to attract my attention. And it occurred to me if that Gilfooly should prove to be the heir, she would be a queen and we could obtain some mighty effective publicity for the Evergreen. Business had been dull, we were feeling the general depression, and we needed something to boost trade. Mr. Marvin has been my friend for many years, and he consented to let me use the information. I don't see yet that any harm has been done," he told Joe defiantly.

"I don't either," murmured Tessie, with a shy glance at Mr. Bill, who looked at her anything but shyly.

Mr. Kingley regarded Tessie with hearty approval before he went on. "Mr. Marvin's man located the eldest child of John Gilfooly in Miss Teresa Gilfooly, who sold aluminum in the Evergreen basement. We arranged to notify her of her good fortune while she was at work, and naturally I made the most of the story. And no one can say I haven't treated Miss Gilfooly like a queen!" He dared Joe to say it. "I confess that I used the romantic and dramatic events which followed to benefit the Evergreen, but any man would have done that if he was any kind of a business man at all. I even helped Miss Gilfooly raise a large fund for the poor children of the islands," he boasted.

"There are no poor in the Sunshine Islands!" Mr. Pitts spoke indignantly. "Every one is rich and happy there, for people are rich and happy when they have all they want. They may not have much, but they have what they want, and I guess that is all any of us work for. I suppose this is a disappointment to you, Miss Gilfooly?" He turned to Tessie with kindly concern.

"No," she told him a little slowly. "It isn't exactly. You see, I know something about these Sons of Sunshine! and when I was kidnaped, I did a lot of thinking I hadn't had time to do before. I remembered what happens to kings and queens when the people don't want them. Joe Cary had told me all about that. I'm not sure I want to be a queen and perhaps some day find myself in boiling oil." She shuddered. "Mr. Pracht said that was what they do in the Sunshine Islands when they don't like their kings."

"It has been done," admitted Mr. Pitts, "but not lately. I think you are right. You wouldn't be happy in the Islands. According to their laws, a queen from another tribe, which is what you would be, must marry the most powerful man on the islands."

"Oh!" Tessie's eyes grew so big and round that there seemed to be nothing in her face but two big blue eyes. "I couldn't do that! I never could do that!" And she looked appealingly at Mr. Bill.

"No, of course you couldn't. And you couldn't stay on the Islands twenty-four hours unless you did. Here is a shot I took at the man you would have to marry, if you remain the queen." He handed Tessie a photograph of a big strapping native, who looked enough like Ka-kee-ta to be his twin brother. He had the same frizzled hair, the same tattooed nose.

Tessie turned away from it with a shriek and a shudder. "I never could! Never!" she declared. "I couldn't ever marry any one but----"

"Me!" interrupted Mr. Bill proudly. Mr. Bill was immensely pleased with Mr. Pitts' report of the Sunshine Islands. It promised to remove many of the difficulties from the path which led to Tessie. "Perhaps this isn't the time to speak of it, but you might as well know that Miss Gilfooly is going to marry me some day soon."

There was a gasp and a gurgle from Mr. Kingley. He stumbled to his feet and stared at his son and then at his former employee. He was unable to utter one of the words which rushed to his lips. He could only stare at his son, and wonder what on earth his son's mother would say.

"Ye gods!" he heard Joe Cary explain. "Here is publicity! The Queen of the Sunshine Islands and the heir of the Evergreen! People will eat up such a story. You'll double your sales again, Mr. Kingley!"

Norah Lee looked at Joe, and then she looked at Tessie, and then back to Joe, as if she were surprised to hear him speak so lightly of Tessie marrying any one. Her face flushed suddenly, and she ran to Tessie and kissed her.

"I'm so glad," she whispered. "I knew Mr. Bill was crazy about you."

"And did you know I was crazy about Mr. Bill?" whispered Tessie, all aquiver with ecstasy. "Isn't he wonderful!"

"Old Bill stole a march on us," grumbled Bert Douglas. "He had you branded before the rest of us had a chance," he told Tessie discontentedly.

"I think you are very wise, Miss Gilfooly." Mr. Pitts seemed as pleased as any of the group. "You will be far happier as the wife of a young American than of Ti-ta there." He nodded toward the snapshot which lay face up on Mr. Marvin's desk.

"My goodness!" shivered Tessie. "I should think I would! But what will become of Ka-kee-ta if I marry Mr. Bill? I shan't want Ka-kee-ta around then."

"I'll take him and the Tear of God back to the islands," offered Mr. Pitts. "And I'll guarantee you a wedding present such as Waloo has never seen."

"And we'll exhibit it at the Evergreen!" Mr. Kingley did not care if Joe Cary did laugh. "People will want to see it."

"Then I am to understand you will renounce your rights to the islands?" Mr. Pitts asked, so that he would know exactly what he was to understand. "I doubt if you really have any legal claim to them. I doubt if Pete Gilfooly had the right to leave them to any one. His private fortune, something over a hundred thousand----"

"A hundred thousand!" cried Mr. Kingley. "I thought it was millions!" He glared at Mr. Pitts as if he suspected that Mr. Pitts had secreted the millions.

"A hundred thousand," repeated Mr. Pitts firmly. "Money isn't worth what it was in the islands. It isn't worth what it was anywhere. Look at the German mark and the French franc! Look at the Russian ruble! Look at the American dollar! The Shark asked millions from the Japanese, but I told you what happened to him. No, Pete Gilfooly left a hundred thousand dollars, and they are safe in a Honolulu bank, subject to Miss Gilfooly's orders. That money was his, no matter how he made it, and he could leave it where he pleased. But the Sunshine Islands are different. And the Tear of God is different, too. Whether you have any right to it or not, you have possession of it, and the people want it back. They are prepared to pay a good price for it, because they believe that misfortune will come to the islands if it isn't brought back. They are childishly superstitious. Any one who has the Tear of God can influence them. That is why Pracht kidnaped Miss Gilfooly. But even if she has the Tear of God, Miss Gilfooly couldn't govern those islands. That's a man's job and it should be a Sunshine Islander's job. I think the offer is a fair one, and I can promise you that the islands will never become the property of any foreign power. They will remain in the possession of the people--an independent people!" he added impressively.

"He's right!" Joe Cary told Tessie eagerly. "You'll be a lot happier if you stop thinking any more about this queen business, and plan to settle down with Mr. Bill in a flat here in Waloo."

"I know," murmured Tessie, all aglow at the thought of a flat in Waloo with Mr. Bill. It would be heaven! And then, strangely enough, she had to remember what Mr. Kingley had said about the duties and responsibilities to which Providence had called her and Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill could look after his duties from a flat in Waloo, but what about her responsibilities? Could she put them aside, just because the Waloo flat would be heaven? The Sunshine Islands were hers. They had been left to her by her Uncle Pete. She didn't care what Mr. Pitts said. And anyway, Mr. Pitts sounded a lot like Mr. Pracht, they both wanted to take her islands from her. Perhaps there were moments when it was unpleasant to be a queen, but there were also moments when it was pleasant. And the islands were hers! The blood of the fighting Gilfoolys began to stir in her veins.

Mr. Pitts playing with the snapshot of Ti-ta turned it toward her. It gave her the horrors just to look at the pictured face. Oh, dear! She did want to continue to be a queen, but she did not want to pay the price for the honor, if Mr. Pitts was right about the price. But was he? Would she have to marry that horror to remain a queen? She looked at Mr. Pitts suspiciously. Mr. Pitts was supposed to be her representative--her special representative--but he talked as if he were the counsel for the islands. He did not seem to be thinking of her at all.

"Then I am to understand," Mr. Pitts said a second time, and in a most ingratiating manner, "that you will resign your claim to the Sunshine Islands?"

His insistence made him more than ever like the detestable Mr. Pracht. Tessie tossed her head indignantly. What was there about her islands that everybody should try to take them from her? Resign! She would not resign anything until she knew, and even when she knew, she would resign nothing until she was ready. She was a queen, and she would keep her kingdom until she was thoroughly ready to give it up. She didn't care what this horrid Mr. Pitts said or what Joe Cary said. And she would keep Mr. Bill, too! The fighting blood of the Gilfoolys was in full command, but before she could muster her indignant thoughts into orderly sentences, which would explain her decision, Mr. Kingley had something to say. Mr. Kingley seemed as opposed to Mr. Pitts as Tessie was.

"Not so fast! Not so fast!" he cautioned. "Kingdoms aren't resigned as easily nor as quickly as that. It doesn't seem wise to me, a business man, for Queen Teresa to give up her rights until she knows what they are. I should advise her to visit the Sunshine Islands before she decides to give them to any one."

"Oh!" Tessie was aghast. "I never could put my foot on them! I wouldn't dare!" And although she was a Gilfooly and therefore brave as a lion, she was inconsistent enough to look piteously at Mr. Bill. Surely he would not want her to visit islands inhabited by cannibals.

"You see!" murmured Mr. Pitts, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

"I should further suggest," went on Mr. Kingley, who seemed full of helpful suggestions, "that, as the queen is to marry my son, the visit to the islands might be a feature of their wedding trip."

"Gosh!" muttered Joe Cary, visualizing the headlines which such a wedding trip would produce in every newspaper.

"Oh!" exclaimed Tessie, but it was a very different "Oh" from the one she had uttered before. What a wonderful man old Mr. Kingley was! With Mr. Bill beside her, she would not be afraid if all six islands were covered with cannibals. She looked at Mr. Bill, her face all pink dimples.

"Now that," exclaimed Mr. Bill enthusiastically, "is a real idea!" He caught Tessie's hand and squeezed it.

But Mr. Pitts shook his head. "You would never be allowed to land," he prophesied.

"Well," exclaimed Tessie stubbornly, "I'm not going to give up my islands until I've seen them!" Mr. Kingley's suggestion was proving more alluring to her every minute.

Mr. Pitts sighed and settled himself for a long argument. He took great pains to hold the picture of Ti-ta so that Tessie would have to look at the tattooed face.

Tessie turned away from it. "And if I'm married to Mr. Bill," her voice shook with ecstasy at the thought, "I couldn't marry that man!"

"The islands would never recognize your marriage to any man but Ti-ta," Mr. Pitts insisted. "You would have to marry him or resign your claims. I am sorry that you don't like my suggestion. It was made to help you. I know what the islands are. I know how Pete Gilfooly managed to hold them. They are no place for a white woman!" And he told them more about the islands, and the barbarous customs of the natives, whom Pete Gilfooly had never been able to civilize, even if he had built them a church and a moving-picture theater. He made Tessie's warm blood run cold, and even Mr. Kingley shook his head.

"Why they're nothing but savages!" Mr. Kingley exclaimed in disgust.

"That's what I have been telling you," Mr. Pitts said patiently. "They have no respect or consideration for women. Miss Gilfooly, even if she is the queen, would be only Ti-ta's slave. She would be just one of his wives!"

"I wouldn't!" cried Tessie, fiercely indignant at such a statement. "I wouldn't marry anybody ever but Mr. Bill! And if those Sunshine Island people don't want me to be their queen, why I don't owe them anything!" She had suddenly made an amazing discovery. "I haven't any obligation to them at all!" Of course she hadn't! Mr. Kingley could talk about the responsibilities Providence had given her if he wanted to, but even Mr. Kingley should see that she owed nothing to a people who refused to let her take the responsibilities. "I'm glad I had the islands, that I was their queen," she went on eagerly, "for they brought me and Mr. Bill together, but now that we are together, I don't want them! Not for a minute! I think they're horrid! I wouldn't live where men can have half-a-dozen wives!"

"But--" began Mr. Kingley feebly.

He had never had anything to do with a royal abdication before, but he felt that this was not the way one should properly be managed. Surely there must be a system for such an affair.

Tessie stamped her foot. "Please, please don't make any more objections!" she begged. "If you were a girl, and had to choose between splendid Mr. Bill and that tattooed horror, you wouldn't hesitate a second, no matter how many kingdoms were thrown in with the native. I'd rather marry Mr. Bill than have a dozen kingdoms! I would!" she repeated defiantly. "I'm like Joe Cary," she even dared to say to purpling Mr. Kingley. "I've learned that women are of far more use to the world than queens."

"Good for you, Tess!" applauded Joe Cary.

"But--" Mr. Kingley began again ever more feebly.

"And anyway," went on Tessie, the words coming in an impetuous rush, "this is my kingdom, and if I want to give it back to the people I can! Can't I?" She appealed to Mr. Bill. "You would just as soon I wouldn't be a queen, wouldn't you?"

"I'd rather!" he told her honestly. "I'd a lot rather have you just little Tessie Gilfooly. I've told you more than once that I wished you weren't a queen."

Tessie drew a long breath and smiled radiantly at Mr. Bill. It pleased her enormously to hear that he liked her better as Tessie Gilfooly. But when she looked at Mr. Kingley she sighed. "I wish you did, too," she said wistfully. She could not be quite happy without Mr. Kingley's approval. "I wish you didn't want me to keep on being a queen."

Before Mr. Kingley could tell her how much better it was in his estimation for her to remain a queen, the door opened, and Mr. Phelps came in with a newspaper which he placed before Mr. Marvin.

"The noon edition of the _Gazette_," he explained importantly, and he looked curiously at Tessie. "I thought you should see this at once." And he pointed to an item in the upper left-hand corner of the folded sheet.

Mr. Marvin looked at the big headline. "Upon my word!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "A tidal wave has washed over the Sunshine Islands and destroyed two of them. Here is a dispatch from Honolulu that on the twenty-third of the month, a tidal wave swept over the Sunshine Islands and destroyed two of them!"

"Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed Mr. Bill, the first to find his voice, and he put his arm around Tessie and held her tight, as if to make sure that she would not be swept away from him.

"A tidal wave!" cried Tessie, and she looked almost suspiciously at Mr. Pitts, as if she suspected that he had had something to do with the tidal wave. "Do they have those on the islands, too?" There seemed to be no end to the disagreeable things that could happen on the Sunshine Islands.

"Occasionally," mumbled Mr. Pitts, as he snatched the paper from Mr. Marvin and read the dispatch himself. "There used to be twelve islands in the group, but six of them have been destroyed by tidal waves. The last was in 1853 when the smallest, Ki-yu-hi, was swept away. I must cable Honolulu!" And he hurried from the room, Ka-kee-ta at his heels.

Tessie turned to Mr. Kingley. "Just suppose we had gone there on our wedding trip, Mr. Bill and I, and we had been swept away by a tidal wave!" she said, her face white at the mere thought. "How would you feel then? I shouldn't think you would want us to have anything to do with such a place."

"Well, well," muttered Mr. Kingley, somewhat dazed by the calamity in the Pacific Ocean. "I'm glad your uncle's money was banked in Honolulu. I guess this Pitts is right and those islands aren't any place for a white woman," he admitted slowly.

"Then, that's settled!" Tessie reached forward and patted his hand. "I'm glad you agree with us at last. But isn't it awful to have two whole islands destroyed like that? It wasn't my fault, was it? Nobody can blame me, can they? Even if I did have the Tear of God?" She snatched the royal jewel from her bag where she had tucked it when she came to the office, and threw it on the desk, as if it burned her fingers. "Do you suppose the islands were destroyed because Ka-kee-ta brought that to me? Do you suppose the people were right when they said misfortune would come to them if the Tear of God wasn't brought back?" Her face was quite white and her eyes full of awed fear. "I--I never want to see it again!" she gasped. "I think those islands are awful! If you aren't killed by savages, you're drowned by tidal waves!" She turned away from the royal pearl with horror.

"I'll take care of it for you," suggested Mr. Kingley, taking it in his hand. "I'll keep it in the store vault." He felt that something should be saved for Tessie from the wreck of her kingdom.

But Tessie shook her head. "I'll give it to Ka-kee-ta," she insisted, "and he can take it back to the islands, and maybe the rest of them will be saved; maybe then there won't be any more tidal waves."

"Sure, you can give it to Ka-kee-ta," Mr. Bill promised her. "I'll be glad to have him take it away from Waloo. I don't want him around, either. He'll be better off with Mr. Pitts. Mr. Pitts seems to understand natives. And some day I'll give you a string of real pearls."

"That's what I'd like!" Tessie was tearfully grateful. "Oh, what will Granny say?" she exclaimed suddenly. "I must go and tell her about the tidal wave and everything!"

XXVI

"Are you surprised?" Norah asked Joe as they went down in the elevator. She looked at Joe curiously, for there was a broad grin on Joe's face, and a grin was not what Norah expected him to wear under the circumstances. She would have said that a sad and sorry countenance was more befitting the occasion. But Joe looked anything but sad and sorry. Indeed, he was so jubilant that Norah borrowed some of his triumphant satisfaction and smiled, too.

He hesitated. "No," he said slowly, "I'm not surprised, although I don't know whether you refer to Tessie's engagement to Mr. Bill, or to Mr. Kingley's successful publicity campaign or to the loss of two of the Sunshine Islands?"

"I meant Tessie's engagement!" She was surprised that he did not understand which was the most important of the three events he mentioned. "I thought you were rather fond of our little queen, yourself," she said with the frank interest which was Norah Lee. There was an odd little breathlessness in her voice as she asked the question, and she watched his face with eager eyes.